In one type of termination arrangement in which the tails of connector contacts are terminated to conductive pads on a circuit board, the contacts are arranged in upper and lower rows and the circuit board pads are arranged in forward and rearward rows. While the upper contact tails have rear ends lying above the top of the circuit board and merely extend at a downward incline to the pads, the lower contacts may lie at or below the top face of the circuit board and may not be as flexible in downward bending as are the upper tails, While flexibility in downward bending of the tails can be increased by extending the length of the tails, there are applications where there is minimal space for the tails and conductive pads, such as in miniature IC (integrated circuit) cards. A termination arrangement which increased tail flexibility while minimizing the forward-to-rearward dimension occupied by the tails and pads, would be of value.
The forward ends of the tails are usually terminated to the pads by reflow soldering, wherein a hot bar may be pressed down against the front ends of the tails. The hot bar heats the front ends of the tails and layers of solder that are sandwiched between the tail ends and the conductive pads. It would be desirable if the hot bar and the termination arrangement were designed to facilitate the reflow soldering of two rows of contact tails to corresponding rows of pads on the circuit board.